Experience It And Derive Your Own Conclusions

Much of Kentucky Route Zero is dependent on players' interpretation of the game's events along with the dialog choices players make while playing.  Because of this heavy reliance on player interpretation, I'm not sure spoilers impact this game as severely as they do other narrative-driven games.  However, I will be discussing a few specific events that occur in Act I of Kentucky Route Zero, so if you're on a media blackout for this game, come back and read this post after you've had a chance to experience it for yourself.

Otherwise...

Kentucky Route Zero moves at a very deliberate pace.  Like the game, main character Conway travels along the backroads of Kentucky without urgency.  All through Act I, the game's pacing has been nothing but slow, a stark contrast when stood next to most of the video and board games I've been playing recently.  This slow pacing is a thing I quickly grew to love.

My favorite moment in the game occurred when Conway had to walk up a large hill with a busted leg.  Conway stood at the bottom of the hill, I clicked once on the landing at the crest of the hill, and Conway began his slow, beleaguered trek up.  As a player, there was nothing more for me to do until Conway finished climbing.  Many games actively avoid presenting players with lulls in interaction with the game's systems for fear of losing player interest.  The developers at Cardboard Computer obviously do not share this fear.  They never shy away from design decisions that force players to slow down, and I think the game benefits because if it.  As Conway limped up the hill, I paid a special attention to the spectacular environment art and equally spectacular ambient soundtrack that had been working so hard to create a setting I enjoyed exploring.  I actually had time to digest what I was experiencing.

This game, at least what Act I had on display, is a game with little player agency.  The only decisions I was allowed to make were dialog decisions, and these decisions had absolutely no influence on the arc of the main story.  However, while the main story barreled along a set path no matter what input I provided, the dialog decisions I did make had a HUGE affect on my perception of the story the game was trying to tell me, or rather, the story I was imprinting upon the game.

A perfect example of this was an encounter Conway had toward the beginning of the game.  Here, a man at a gas station asks Conway about the dog he is traveling with.  The three choices I was given in response were:

• "His name is Hunter."
• "Her name is Blue."
• "Just some dog: I don't know his name."

Right away when presented with these choices, I knew Blue and Conway had been together a long time.  Conway is a private man of few words, but he has always opened himself up to Blue.  For 11 years, Blue has been at Conway's feet for every story he's told.  She may be old, but Blue is the most vibrant thing in Conway's life.

This is the story I chose to tell, but another player's Conway might be traveling with a strange dog he picked up off the side of the highway only hours before the encounter at the gas station.  Again, the dialog choices I made had no impact on the overall story, but given dialog options that are so disparate, something I've never seen in story-driven games, helped me craft a very vivid and personal narrative.

More than anything else, Kentucky Route Zero feels authentic to me.  The setting, events, and inhabitants are unbelievably strange, but everything included in the world feels like it has purpose.  Admittedly, Kentucky Route Zero does not offer much gameplay in the traditional sense, but it has given me a welcomingly weird (I'm talking Twin Peaks weird!) interactive world that I want to explore more of.

Cheers,

Danny